Maybe, just maybe, the decision by RFK Jr. – whom many on the right and left like for different reasons – is a sign. Maybe his decision to endorse Trump, and declare corruption unacceptable, is about something bigger. Being “against” is exhausting. Seeking common ground is exhilarating.
Could it be that, even in this 11th hour, Americans are waking up – or a few are? That traditional Democrats and thoughtful Independents will now think about the nation, not the rhetoric, not the ease of nodding with those who have long despised Trump, but the value in his policies?
Go broader: Is it possible that, similar to that period after the American Civil War, when the nation was sad, tired, torn up, and desperate for healing, we may hear the kind of appeal Lincoln made?
What did Lincoln say then, in a time of profound division, loss of focus, unity, torn oneness? In closing his First Inaugural Address, Lincoln uttered these timeless words, at least timeless for Americans, bound as we are to each other – inevitably, enduringly, necessarily. Today, they echo.
“I am loathe to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.”
Stop there. What if we, one to another, just read those few laconic lines to a neighbor, to those we have always been close to, but which recent events have strained our bonds with? Think about that.
Lincoln continued: “The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
Lincoln was hopeful, dogged, realistic, and wise. He was not prophetic, not all-powerful, not some Godlike human, but he could see what would happen if level heads failed to stop the thundering approach of war, divisions within the nation that would tear the nation asunder.
He knew that wars, declared and undeclared, civil and uncivil, like injustices left unresolved, eat away at a nation and – growing worse by the day – eat at the hearts and contentment of Her citizens.
He delivered that plea to the nation, this man who had never before held high office, who was a self-taught, humble Illinois lawyer with a humble Mainer for vice president – on March 4, 1861.
On April 12, 1861, the Confederacy bombed Fort Sumter, triggering four years of political violence gone viral, a nation gone mad with war, brothers fighting against and killing brothers, and Americans allowing their ideological, economic, and all-or-nothing self-interest to rend their common bonds.
Lincoln had – as a candidate for the US House (unsuccessful), US Senate (unsuccessful), and then Presidency – sought to stop the juggernaut of war, the default to indulgence in all-or-nothing- think. He asked what others have in times of strain, from Washington facing rebellions to Bobby Kennedy on the night Martin Luther King was killed: Be your better selves, treasure the common ground.
In some ways, telescoping former dark and instructive times, we seem to be at another inflection point, another spot on the arc of our history when we must choose.
We must – and this includes Democrats, Independents, and Republicans – choose between fracture with all its enthusiasms, and persistence with all its frustrations, between the instant gratification of throwing down, no longer bothering to persuade, and seeking common ground.
What the RFK Jr. decision says, without actually saying it, is that some see the preservation of the Republic as paramount, more important than winning the game, more valuable than the rough and tumble, roll, crash, and froth of politics.
Could it be that this is the start of a rethink – by more than one man – about what it takes to keep a republic safe and prosperous, restoring the “bonds of affection?” History, as they say, is made by inches. Still, some inches are harder to win and keep than others. Here’s to common ground.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
